Local

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-New York) is calling for changes from the Federal Railroad Administration, after an elevated railroad’s sidewall collapsed in Syracuse last month. Schumer wants the FRA to hire more inspectors and change its policy on releasing inspection reports.

By the year 2020, auto traffic will again be rolling on Lower Main Street between Scott and Exchange Streets, sharing that stretch of the road with NFTA Metro Rail service. Work on a $22.5 million phase of the City of Buffalo's Cars Sharing Main Street Project is now underway.

Buffalo Bishop Richard Malone gathered local media members Sunday to read a statement in which he pledged to remain in his post despite widening calls for his resignation. He took no questions while vowing to take corrective measures in dealing with accusations of sexual abuse by clergy members.

Sunday is the final day of the 2018 season at the Chautauqua Institution. But the Amphitheater's historic Massey Memorial Pipe Organ will not be available for the closing ceremony. The computer console used to program the organ was damaged by a small fire Tuesday.

Earlier this summer, Buffalo became the new home of the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of pink lawn flamingos. To continue the summer’s record-setting success, on Saturday morning Western New York will be home to another new world record.

New York State requires same-sex couple have the same right as heterosexual couples to adopt children. Catholic doctrine defines marriage as a union exclusively between a man and a woman. Citing the irreconcilable difference, Catholic Charities has decided to end its long-running foster care and adoption services.

Congressman Brian Higgins joined local veterans Thursday outside an Amerst-based center that is slated to close at the end of September. Their message to the Department of Veterans Affairs: keep the Adult Day Health Care center open. Higgins also suggested the VA's explanation for closing it doesn't entirely make sense.

A McDonalds on 2803 North Main Street in Jamestown is being temporarily closed while the New York State Department of Health and the Chautauqua County Health Department investigate reports of multiple illnesses.

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz stood on the sidewalk in front of a Buffalo nursing home Thursday morning, urging the New York State Department of Health to intervene and take control of a center where two residents died on unnatural causes in the past two years. Poloncarz said those are just some of the many more complaints lodged against the facility.

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1:46

WBFO's Michael Mroziak reports. (NOTE: At the time of production, WBFO had not yet received a written statement from Emerald South for their response to claims made outside the facility.)

Personal attachments---friends, family, spiritual matters--boosted the overall numbers in a survey measuring New Yorkers' life satisfaction. Don Levy, director of the Siena College Research Institute, calls the attachments a "bubble" which provides relief from concerns over politics, finances and global affairs. Seventy percent are less than satsified on the direction the world is going.

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3:11

Don Levy, director of the Siena College Research Institute, discussed their latest poll on life satisfaction with WBFO.

The National Buffalo Wing Festival will return to Coca-Cola Field in less than two weeks for its 17th year. It will feature over 25 eateries from all over the world serving over 100 styles of chicken wings. This year, the “Wimbledon Wing” will be coming to the festival all the way from London.

The New York State Fair begins Wednesday in Syracuse and stands as a celebration of the upstate agricultural economy, but the people who run those farms fear they could be deported without a license. Members of Green Light New York gathered Tuesday in Buffalo, Syracuse, and Rochester highlighting the benefits of immigrant farmworkers receiving a license.

The Thruway Authority is catching flack over cashless tolling well beyond the Grand Island bridges. The company running EZPass, in New York, has been having problems with its system across the state and around the nation.

Hundreds of Western New York Muslims gathered inside the Adam's Mark Hotel in Buffalo Tuesday morning for a prayerful celebration of Eid al Adha, an Islamic holy day coinciding with the conclusion of the Hajj - the annual holy pilgrimage to Mecca by Muslim faithful.

Bringing cashless tolling to the Grand Island Bridges was supposed to make crossing the spans easier on drivers. But some motorists are paying through the nose - and the push is on for change in Albany.

The figures associated with the opioid crisis continue to stagger. According to the National Safety Council, Erie County has experienced a 192-percent jump in the number of deaths due to opioid overdoses over the last six years. To highlight their sense of urgency, Council officials have brought a traveling memorial to Canalside this week.

Officials continue to examine the death of 27-year-old India Cummings, who had been in the Erie County Holding Center. A state medical review board says her death should be ruled a homicide, because of neglect, and the New York Attorney General has been asked to take the case, and says they will have an answer in a few weeks. Meanwhile, Cummings' mother says she is waiting for justice.

There is no end in sight to trade tensions between the U.S. and Canada. Last week, on the one-year-anniversary of the start of NAFTA's renegotiation, President Trump said, "we're not even talking to Canada right now." But at least one local distiller is pleased by the spirit of U.S. tariffs on Canadian products.

Gove. Andrew Cuomo walked back comments made earlier this week where he said that America “was never that great,” saying they were “inartful” and that he does believe the nation is, and has always been, “great.”